The artists tell USA Today that they ultimately scrapped a scene in which protagonist Bigger Thomas rapes and murders his girlfriend, Bessie Mears, while evading arrest for accidentally smothering his wealthy White employer’s daughter to death. Their film instead shows Bigger (Ashton Sanders, “Moonlight”) choking Bessie (KiKi Layne, “If Beale Street Could Talk”) before releasing her when the police arrive. Johnson attributes the decision to the current climate around how media and society depicts violence against women.

“Our intention was to give Bigger an opportunity to be both complicated and [empathetic] simultaneously, and that was just a step off of a cliff that didn’t allow us to tell the story in a [contemporary] way that we thought would facilitate conversation,” he explained. “Because that level of violence against women at this time, in this narrative, really would’ve hijacked some of the more fascinating topics that we begin to explore in this story.”

“It would’ve hijacked his character,” Parks added. “That’s not who he is.”